Department of
Transportation (DOT) and FAA press
conference held on Monday, October

19, 2015. In that press conference,
the DOT announced plans to require
registration for some UAS.

In reality, the DOT doesn’t yet
have a plan. What it has is a concept.
Included in the press conference was
an announcement of the creation
of a task force that is charged with
creating the plan. As I write this
column, we don’t yet know who
will be included on the task force,
but we do know that its members
will include representatives from
AMA, AUVSI, the Air Line Pilots
Association, the U.S. Department of
Commerce, Google, Amazon, and
NASA.

We also expect participants
will include various government
agencies and others in the industry
including representatives from the
major multirotor manufacturers,
distributors, and retailers. It’s
anticipated that the task force
will include as many as two dozen
participants. The task force’s schedule
calls for it to convene for the first
time on Tuesday November 3, 2015,
and have its work completed by
November 20, 2015—an ambitious
timeframe by anyone’s standards.

Not all inclusive, but some of
the questions the task force will be
considering include:

1. Consistent with the past practice
of discretion, should certain UAS
be excluded from registration based
on performance capabilities or
other characteristics that could be
associated with safety risk, such as
weight, speed, altitude operating
limitations, duration of flight? If so,
please submit information or data
to help support the suggestions, and
whether any other criteria should be
considered.

2. How should a registration
process be designed to minimize
burdens and best protect innovation
and encourage growth in the UAS
industry?

3. What type of information should
be collected during the registration
process to positively identify the
aircraft owner and aircraft?

4. How should the registration data
be stored? Who should have access to
the registration data? How should the
data be used?

5. Are there additional means
beyond aircraft registration to
encourage accountability and
responsible use of UAS?

It’s probably an understatement
to say that there is much confusion
and misunderstanding regarding what
this might mean to AMA members as
well as all model aviation enthusiasts.

I think the DOT recognizes that
not all UAS need to be, or should
require registration. AMA members
have operated their aircraft safely
and responsibly for decades without
the need for registration, and we are
resolute in our position that this must
not change.

For decades, AMA has encouraged
its members to place their names,
addresses, or AMA number on
their models. This is, in fact, an
adequate method of identifying a
model if needed. AMA also believes
that it makes little sense to require
registration for the multirotor
platforms that have limited
capabilities or those that fall within
the “toy” category.

For the task force to be successful
in its work, it first needs to establish a
threshold above which it might make
some sense to require registration.
That threshold could be based on
the platform’s size, weight, speed, or
technological capabilities; however,
we caution that the threshold needs
to be based on substantive data, and
not be merely a subjective baseline
selected without any underlying
research to support it.

Although AMA agrees that
registration of some platforms might
have a minimal impact on the small
number of users flying irresponsibly,
we firmly believe that most
enthusiasts are responsible and want
to fly safely.

This is why it is important that the
DOT and FAA focus more of their
efforts on education and training, and
increase their support of AMA’s and
AUVSI’s work with Know Before
You Fly.

Finally, the most important thing
the FAA can do is to increase its
efforts in taking enforcement action
against anyone doing something
that rises to the level of causing
an eminent threat to others in the
airspace.

Can registration address some of
the concerns of the DOT and FAA?
Maybe, however, the real solution
lies with education and enforcement.

See you next time …

NewsAMA

Announcements, news, and information from the Academy of
Model Aeronautics and the elected district representatives

VIEW FROM HQ by Dave Mathewson, AMA Executive Director

UAS registration in the works

... it is important that
the DOT and FAA focus
more of their efforts on
education and training,
and increase their
support of AMA’s and
AUVSI’s work ...